Customizing Windows XP & Vista

Topics

Shutting a Windows Vista computer all the way down and then rebooting can cure many computer problems. When you reboot, Windows goes through several self-repair processes that really can make a difference[more…]

To make the Windows Vista Start menu really work for you, you need to understand the All Programs submenu. This may come as a shock, but the All Programs submenu on your Start menu doesn't actually contain[more…]

If you know how to rearrange the All Programs submenu, you can untangle and organize the mess in your Start menu. Every time you choose Start→All Programs, Windows reaches into four folders and assembles[more…]

Windows Vista comes with a number of different sets of mouse pointers. Whether you need to change your pointers to make them easier to find or to see or you just want a change, the ability to alter what[more…]

If you know how to change your mouse's behavior in Windows Vista, you can make sure that the mouse is set to work specifically with your needs. The mouse settings are great for customizing the computer[more…]

Windows Vista allows you to modify how your keyboard works. You might think "a keyboard is just a keyboard," but it can be more if you know how to configure it. You can control things like the speed of[more…]

You can set up a screen saver in Windows Vista to express your personality. Screen savers used to be required to keep your monitor from burning out when an image was held on your screen for too long. Newer[more…]

If you know how to change the color scheme in Windows Vista, you can control the colors that Windows uses when displaying dialog boxes, menus, and windows. Changing the color scheme is a great way to reflect[more…]

To help you work more efficiently, you'll want to know how to create a desktop shortcut in Windows Vista. Think of your Windows desktop like your physical workspace. To keep your workflow efficient, you'll[more…]

Windows comes stocked with ease-of-use features that let people with different levels of abilities use Windows. For example, you can optimize the visual display in Windows Vista to help visually challenged[more…]

If you're hard of hearing and don’t always recognize system sounds alerting you to error messages or a device disconnect, you might want to set Windows Vista to replace those system sounds with visual[more…]

The Task Manager is a handy tool that lets you monitor the way applications are using your computer's resources and close "frozen" programs. You can place the Task Manager in the Windows Vista system tray[more…]

Although you can use the Task Manager to monitor when things are going wrong with your system, this isn't very useful if the system is so locked up that you can't open it. One way to avoid this problem[more…]

Windows XP had a program called the Desktop Cleanup Wizard that offered to clean the desktop for you, but it didn't work very well, so it was left out of Windows Vista. Never fear, you can still clean[more…]

Say you have to e-mail a status report to the same people every day. Instead of creating a new e-mail from scratch each time, you can generate an e-mail shortcut in Windows Vista that, when double-clicked[more…]

When you want to work with two files or programs, it's usually much more convenient to be able to see both files at the same time. You can arrange multiple windows side by side on your desktop in Windows[more…]

Windows Vista gives you a great deal of flexibility when it comes to creating keyboard shortcuts (also called hot keys). You can use hot keys to open programs, files, and even Web pages. Creating a hot[more…]

Are you tired of the Start→All Programs→Blah→Blah hunt-and-click routine in Vista? Do you have a small handful of programs you run every day? If so, learning to use Windows Vista's Quick Launch toolbar[more…]

There’s no need to settle for Windows’ bone-stock Quick Launch toolbar. Adding programs, files, or folders that you want to get at quickly is a great way to make the Quick Launch toolbar work for you.[more…]

Windows Explorer provides the lens by which you see all the files and folders on your computer. To get the most out of Windows Explorer, you need to make Windows Vista show you the filename extensions[more…]

Underneath Windows Explorer’s docile exterior beats the heart of a powerful, adroit assistant. You need to do a bit of tweaking, but if you spend a few minutes to apply these suggestions, you can emerge[more…]

Typically, Vista looks at the contents of a folder and then decides what kind of template to apply to the folder. But did you know that you can tell Windows Explorer to assign a specific template to a[more…]